That Smell One More Time You Got That Right Lynyrd Skynyrd

That Smell Album: Street Survivors (1977)
One More Time Album: Street Survivors (1977)
You Got That Right Album: Street Survivors (1977)
by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Street Survivors is the fifth studio album by Lynyrd Skynyrd, released on October 17, 1977. The LP is the last Skynyrd album recorded by original members Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins, and is the sole Skynyrd studio recording by guitarist Steve Gaines. Three days after the album's release, the band's chartered airplane crashed en route to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing the pilot, co-pilot, the group's assistant road-manager and three band members (Van Zant, Gaines, and Gaines' older sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines), and severely injuring most who survived the crash.

The album was an instant success, achieving gold certification just 10 days after its release. It would later go double platinum. The album performed well on the charts, peaking at #5 (the band's highest-charting album), as did the singles "What's Your Name" and "That Smell," the former a top-20 hit on the singles chart.

Street Survivors was recorded twice, once with Tom Dowd at the helm at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, and then at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia, five months later with uncredited co-producers Kevin Elson and Rodney Mills. The Doraville recording was used for the initial release of the album. On March 4, 2008, a remastered version of the album, Street Survivors: Deluxe Edition, was released with these alternate versions of most of the songs as well as five live tracks.
Street Survivors was a showcase for guitarist/vocalist Steve Gaines, who had joined the band just a year earlier on the recommendation of his sister Cassie. Publicly and privately, Ronnie Van Zant marveled at the multiple talents of Skynyrd's newest member, claiming that the band would "all be in his shadow one day." Gaines' contributions included his co-lead vocal with Van Zant on the co-written "You Got That Right" and the guitar boogie "I Know A Little," which Gaines had written before he joined Skynyrd. So confident was Skynyrd's leader of Gaines' abilities, that the album (and some concerts) featured Gaines delivering his self-penned blues "Ain't No Good Life" - one of the few songs in the first incarnation Skynyrd catalog to feature a lead vocalist other than Van Zant. The album also included the hit single "What's Your Name" and the ominous "That Smell" - a cautionary tale about drug abuse that seemed to be aimed at fellow band members (both Collins and Gary Rossington had serious car accidents which slowed the recording of the album).

On October 20, 1977, only three days after the release of Street Survivors, and five shows into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered Convair CV-300 ran out of fuel near the end of their flight from Greenville, South Carolina, where they had just performed at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium, to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Though the pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip, the plane crashed in a forest five miles (8 km) northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were killed on impact. The other band members (Collins, Rossington, Wilkeson, Powell, Pyle, and Hawkins), tour manager Ron Eckerman, and road crew survived, but suffered serious injuries.

Following the crash and the ensuing press, Street Survivors became the band's second platinum album and reached No. 5 on the U.S. album chart. The single "What's Your Name?" reached No. 13 on the single airplay charts in January 1978.

The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band standing on a city street with all its buildings engulfed in flames, some near the center nearly obscuring Steve Gaines's face. After the plane crash, this cover became highly controversial. Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve's widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background, which was on the back cover of the original sleeve. An urban legend has long claimed that only those band members touched by flame in the photograph were killed in the crash, but this is not true (flame appears to touch nearly all band members). The original "flames" cover was restored for the Deluxe Edition.

Robert Christgau stated: "Some rock deaths are irrelevant, while others make a kind of sense because the artists involved so obviously long to transcend (or escape) their own mortality. But for Ronnie Van Zant, life and mortality were the same thing--there was no way to embrace one without at least keeping company with the other. So it makes sense that 'That Smell' is the smell of death, or that in 'You Got That Right' Van Zant boasts that he'll never be found in an old folks' home. As with too many LPs by good road bands, each side here begins with two strong cuts and then winds down. The difference is that the two strong cuts are very strong and the weak ones gain presence with each listen. I'm not just being sentimental. I know road bands never make their best album the sixth time out, and I know Van Zant had his limits. But I mourn him not least because I suspect that he had more good music left in him than Bing [Crosby] and Elvis put together."

That Smell is about Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who bought a new car (a Ford Torino), got drunk, and crashed it into a tree, then a house ("whiskey bottles, brand new car, oak tree you're in my way"). The band was supposed to start a tour in a few days, but had to postpone it because of Rossington's injuries.

Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Allen Collins wrote this song. They were not pleased with Rossington, whose drug and alcohol problems were affecting the band.

The band fined Rossington $5000 for holding up the tour. Skynyrd made an effort to stay sober on this tour. Drugs and alcohol were banned from the dressing rooms.

Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backup singer Cassie Gaines were killed in a plane crash a few days after Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1977 tour started. Some of the lyrics in this song refer to death, and the cover of the album, which had just been released, showed the band enveloped in flames.

This song features the famous whistle of Ronnie Van Zant. He learned to whistle very loud so he could call the dogs when he went hunting.

In You Got That Right, Skynyrd make it clear they won't be settling down anytime soon - they've got that "traveling bone" and a thirst for adventure. It's a similar sentiment to "Free Bird," but without the metaphor.

The title is a phrase popular in the American South as a defiant affirmation:

"You were out drinking last night, weren't you?"

"You got that right."

You Got That Right was written by lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines, who joined the band in 1976. The two share lead vocals on the song, making it, along with the Gaines-sung "Ain't No Good Life" (also from Street Survivors) the only Lynyrd Skynyrd releases (not counting demos) to feature a lead vocalist other than Van Zant during his lifetime. Both Gaines and Van Zant were killed when the band's plane crashed on October 20, 1977, just three days after Street Survivors was released. Gaines' sister Cassie, a backup singer for Skynyrd, was also killed in the crash.

This is a great example of the contributions Steve Gaines made to the group. After replacing guitarist Ed King, he made a huge impact on their songwriting. Street Survivors was his only album with the band, but he wrote or co-wrote half the songs: "You Got That Right" and "I Never Dreamed" with Van Zant, and "Ain't No Good Life" and "I Know A Little" on his own.

According to Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, Gaines inspired them to up their game, as was a top-notch guitarist and writer.

This was released months after the plane crash that claimed the lives of Gaines and Van Zant. It peaked at #69 US on April 29, 1978, six months after the crash. It was the last single from Street Survivors and the last Skynyrd song to make the Hot 100.